FFVI Short Story Collection
by Salacassera
Summary: How's that for a creative title? Anyway, these are just some short stories I wrote about Final Fantasy 6.
1. A Sunny Day

All of these following stories were written while I was playing the game. This one was written just after I got Gau with Sabin and Cyan, thus why some stuff might be off. It was fun to write , though.  
  
It was a bright, sunny day. Birds were singing merrily in the trees, and everybody was happy.  
Well, almost everybody.  
Kefka was in a very bad mood. "Dammit!" he exclaimed, kicking a stray cat who had been lying in his way. "Look out there! Just look! Isn't that the most pitiful, horrid thing you've ever seen in your life?!"  
General Leo walked over. "Er...I don't see anything." he said, after thouroughly examining the area.  
"Are you blind?!" Kefka cried, kicking the poor cat again. It hissed and scurried off. "Look up there in the sky, you moron!"  
The sky was completely clear of clouds,giant birds of prey,meteorites,and UFOs. The only thing that could be spotted was-  
"The sun? That's what you're so ticked off about?" Leo asked.  
"Of course, you nimrod! What else do you see?!"  
"What's so bad about the sun?"  
"It makes people happy!" Kefka exclaimed angrily. "It makes people all happy and joyful about absolutely nothing! So the sun's out! Big deal! Who cares?!"  
"Without the sun, the planet would be nothing more than a barren sphere of ice," Leo pointed out.  
"Exactly!" Kefka cried.  
Leo rolled his eyes. Just then, 2 soldiers marched over. "Hello, Sir!" one of them said cheerily. "It's such a pleasant day out, isn't it? Doesn't it feel good to have the sun out after so long?"  
"ARGH!" Kefka cried, and ran into his tent screaming.  
"What's up with him?" the second soldier asked, staring at the place where Kefka had been standing less than a minute ago.  
"Who knows?" Leo replied. "Phyciatrists have been trying to figure that out for years. Anyway,what do you have to report?"  
"Look what we found!" the first soldier said, and they showed their captive to the General.  
"You let me go, or me tell Mr. Thou!" the prisoner screeched, trying to bite their kneecaps off.  
Kefka re-emerged from the tent and looked at the soldiers' captive thoughtfully. "He'll come in handy, alright!" he exclaimed, and ran off, laughing his evil laugh with barely supressed glee.  
"I don't want to know what he's going to do," Soldier 1 said to Soldier 2. "Do you?"  
"Whatever it is, it's not going to be suitable for people under the age of 18 to watch," Soldier 2 said.  
"I wonder if it involves the piranahs and the leeches he came back with yesterday," General Leo said with a thoughtful shudder.  
"At least he's happy again," Soldier 1 said, desprately trying to find something positive in the situation.  
"And that's not a good thing, either!" Soldier 2 said. Then they all wandered back to their posts, trying to keep the unpleasant thought out of their minds as they went about their jobs. The suspense was killing them.  
Finally, General Leo went to confront Kefka about his newest evil plan. "What the heck are you planning to do?!" he demanded, ducking his head and entering the tent that they shared. It was no picnic, having to live with someone as evil and bad-tempered as Kefka.  
"I'm not telling you!" Kefka exclaimed, stirring a big pot of stewed leeches and crushed bones.  
The captive was caged in the corner. "Let me go right now, or Mr. Thou's gonna come,kick your   
@$$!" he cried, rattling the bars. "Then you be sorry!"  
"And you'll be dead!" Kefka said. "Down at the bottom of a posion river with a bunch of rocks tied to your feet!"  
General Leo stared at Kefka in horror. "You can't do that to a child!" he cried.  
"Why not?" Kefka said reasonably, and then stalked back outside. Leo could hear him screaming at the unfortunate soldiers who had been stationed outside the doorway.  
"You, there! Yes you, the oaf with the huge zit on his nose! Go make some more of that great poison we used to kill those idiot Domanians! You! The stupid one! Go with him!"  
  
Meanwhile, about 15 miles away in the middle of nowhere, it was unusually quiet.   
"Hast thou seen Gau lately?" Cyan asked Sabin.  
"No, thank goodness," Sabin said. "That's the last thing I need right now, a hyperactive 5 year-old!"  
"He hasn't been seen in about 5 days,"Cyan reminded him.  
"The longer the better," Sabin snapped. "I actually had a good day yesterday, without that little creep hanging onto my ankles every step I took!"  
"Do you really mind him that much?"  
"I sure do!"  
"Do not."  
"Do too."  
"Do not!"  
"Do too!"  
"Do NOT!"  
"Do TOO!"  
"Let us search for him, then."  
"I don't think you understood me." Sabin said. "I like it this way. Besides, Gau can take care of himself. Didn't he do precisely that before he met us?"  
"What if something happened to him?"  
Sabin might have been tough, but he didn't have a heart made of cubic zarconium. "Fine, fine. You win. Let's go look for that little terror."  
So they searched, and they searched, looking in bushes, holes in the ground, and in any other place big enough for someone Gau's age could possibly fit into.  
"Maybe he's back at Creasent Mountain?" Sabin asked, and they trekked all the way back there. No such luck.   
"Perhaps he fell into a river and was swept somewhere else," Cyan suggested. Sabin shook his head.  
"Impossible. The brat's afraid of water, remember?"  
"Do you have any idea?"  
"No." Sabin said. "But if he did fall into a river, he could be anywhere on the entire continent by now!"  
"Then let us search harder, Sir Sabin."   
So they continued searching.  
  
Someone else was searching for something important, too.   
"Where are you?!"Shadow called, looking for his best friend and only companion- his dog, whose name was (as you would've guessed on your own in the next few paragraphs anyway) Interceptor.  
"Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor!" he stopped, and took a breath. "Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor!" He took another breath. "Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor!" He took yet another deep breath, and continued calling. "Interceptor! Interceptor!Interceptor! Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor!Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Dammit, where ARE you?!"  
Of course, there was no answer.  
"Maybe he's not in the living room, then." Shadow supposed to himself. So he went to the bedroom. "Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor!..."  
2 and a half days later, he realized that Interceptor must not be in the house, or else he would've come by now.  
So he went outside to the backyard. "Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor!Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor!Interceptor!Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor!Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! Interceptor! 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The neighbors who were watching and/or listening to this sighed to themselves. Some people are hopeless.  
  
After 5 days of endlessly searching for Gau, Sabin was struck very hard by a realization.  
"We can search forever, and we're never going to find him!" he exclaimed.  
"Why not, pray tell?" Cyan asked, looking under a rock.  
"'Cause if he keeps moving around, chances are we're never going to be in the same place as he is!" Sabin explained impatiently. "Oh, and if he was really under that rock, he'd be crushed like a pancake. So save your energy and look somewhere else."  
"And what do you decree, sir?"  
"I say we go and get some help."  
So they went off to enlist the help of Locke the thief...er...treasure hunter. (Put that axe down NOW, you thief- I mean, treasure hunter!Really! Owwww!)  
  
Back at the imperial camp that night, General Leo was thinking of an idea. It was an evil, diabolical idea, much unlike him. But it was for the good of all living (and nonliving, for that matter) things.  
He was going to kill Kefka!  
  
Meanwhile, at Castle Figaro, King Edgar was bored. So he went to the grocery store to look at...produce. Yeah, that's it.Produce. Sure.  
So he went to the cashier.  
"That'll be $12.50,"the cashier said.  
"$12.50?!" Edgar exlcaimed in outrage. "$12.50 for 2 oranges?! You must be insane!"  
"Want me to call in the manager?" the cashier asked.  
"Yes! In fact, I do want you to call the manager!" Edgar cried. People were now gathering to watch.  
The manager showed up at the scene about 7 or 8 minutes later. She was a beautiful, full-bosomed lady, and we all know what that meant. The king dropped the bag of oranges on the floor, and they splattered.  
"You heard the cashier," the manager said. "That'll be $12.50!"  
Edgar handed her a $100 bill. "Here you go, you highly desirable object!" he said cheerfully, and was about to leave, when the manager karate-kicked him in the abdomen and screeched,  
"What did you just call me, you...you...you pig?! You brute! You jerk! You beast! You dork! You buffoon!You- get back here!!!"  
He quickly fled the store,crawling on hands and knees, and was never seen there again.  
  
On their way to reach Locke the th-treasure hunter's house, Sabin and Cyan stopped beside the imperial camp.  
"D'you think he's in there?" Sabin asked, pointing.  
"He might be," Cyan said with a shrug.   
"Well, what if he isn't?" Sabin wondered.  
"Shhh! Do you hear that?" Cyan asked, clamping a hand over Sabin's mouth.  
"Mmmf! Mmm mmnf!" Sabin replied, struggling to get Cyan's hand off him. "Yeah, it must be Gau! Who else can it be?" They ran off to get a closer look.  
  
Shadow was looking over his yard for the 424th time, when he noticed a red string tied to his finger. Then he remembered- Interceptor was at the vet! So he ran off to pick him up. The neighbors took their hands off their ears and sighed in relief.  
  
The General's tent was the scene of much chaos that morning, and the soldiers were hiding behind barrels and trees, trying to guess what the heck was going on.  
What WAS going on, you ask? General Leo had decided to get his rather unpleasant chore over with as early as possible. However, what he didn't know was that Kefka was planning to kill him as well. So when he tried to stab him with the sword, he was surprised to find a blade at his own throat. Now the two of them were swordfighting, both trying to push their opponent into the river.   
This was the exact time that Sabin and Cyan decided to storm the place, grab Gau, and leave, as well.It wasn't very hard.   
"Mr. Thou!" Gau exclaimed gleefully. "Are you going to kick his (he point to Kefka) @$$?"  
"How many times have I TOLD you, I'M NOT MR. THOU!" Sabin exclaimed. "He is!"   
"No he's not, he's Cyan!" Gau said.  
Sabin mentally counted to 568, and stormed off.  
The soldiers had come out of hiding, and were all staring at the sight of their two Generals fighting, and there was an audible gasp from the crowd when Kefka gave Leo a hard shove from the river's edge.  
However, the General grabbed Kefka's foot, and pulled him in with him.  
The soldiers threw down a rope, and managed to save General Leo and get him an antidote for the poison, but Kefka's corpse drifted down the Lete river, until Ultros ate it. (He later said that it was the worst thing he had ever eaten in his life, and that he prefered bisquick fish.And if you ever had bisquick fish and are still alive to read this, you must have super powers or something like that.)  
  
Later on, everybody went to Castle Figaro for a celebration. A moogle was looking over the buffet table when he said, "There's no oranges! We need oranges! Can somebody go and get some?"  
"NOO!!!!" Edgar screamed. He jumped up from his place at the table,and locked himself in his room. "You're all trying to kill me! Augh! Well, I'M NOT GOING! You can't get rid of ME that easily!"  
"Sometimes I worry about this place," Locke observed, pouring himself more beer.  
  
About a week later, the manager of the south Figaro grocery store went to get the mail. After reading one of the letters, she remarked, "The king's cutting off his funding. I wonder why?"  



	2. Baking Cookies?!

It was a normal day on board the airship Blackjack. Gau and Relm were in the kitchen baking...  
"Cookies?" Setzer asked.  
"Yeah, cookies!" Relm exclaimed. "Got a problem with that?!"  
"Cookies?" Setzer asked.  
"Are you deaf or something?" Relm demanded.  
"What's going on in there?!" Strago asked in alarm a few minutes later.  
"We're baking cookies!" Relm said.  
"Cookies?" Setzer asked.  
"Gau pour goo in bowl!" Gau said with glee, dumping the contents of a bottle of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup into an antique china bowl.  
"Add more marshmallows!" Relm said, dumping a bag full of fluffy white stuff in.  
"Those aren't marshmallows, they're cotton balls!" Strago cried.  
"Oh, what do YOU know, you old geezer?" Relm replied. "Now where did I put that rubbing alcohol..."  
Strago ran out of the kitchen with his hands clapped over his mouth. Terra walked in a couple moments after he left.  
"Ooh! What're you two cooking?" she asked. "It smells...odd."  
"It's certainly a unique mixture," Strago said, returning.  
"Who puked and forgot to flush the toilet?!" Sabin demanded a few minutes later.  
Relm pried open a cardboard box and poured a bunch of brown powder into their bowl.  
"Brownie mix?" Terra asked, taking the box and reading the label.  
"Brownies?" Setzer asked.  
"No, you dipwad!" Relm cried. "COOKIES!"  
"Er...but isn't this brownie mix?" Terra inquired.  
"You're cooking girl scouts?!" Edgar asked in horror, running in with his AutoCrossbow.  
"Figures that's when YOU decide to run in!" Relm said, dumping 5 eggs into their mix.  
"Gau THROW!" Gau cried, throwing the gunk into the air, where it stuck in King Edgar's hair.  
"Eew," Terra said. "Let's get out of here!"  
She and Strago made a rather hasty exit. "Cookies?" Setzer asked.  
"Are you feeling alright?" Edgar asked anxiously.  
"Feeling alright?" Setzer asked, and meandered out of the room, where he promptly fell down the staircase on top of Locke, who was coming up with a bunch of "treasure."  
"He tried some of our recipes from earlier today," Relm explained. "I don't think he liked them, though. What an idiot."  
"This stuff had better not stain," Edgar said, trying to pick bits of eggshell off his cloak.   
Cyan strode in a couple minutes later. "Why is thy wandering gambler passed out on yonder stairway?" he asked, biting into a brownie/cookie Relm offered him. He quickly spat it out into a napkin. Sabin joined them just about then.  
"Mr. Thou! Mr. Thou!" Gau cried. "Try it! Try it! Please?"  
"I'M NOT MR. THOU!" Sabin screamed.  
"Yes, you are!" Gau said. "Try try try try try try try try try try try try try try try..."  
"Oh, alright," Sabin said, taking a cooling "cookie" off the tray.  
"No, brother! Don't!" Edgar cried, trying to knock it out of Sabin's hands.  
"Why?" Sabin asked with his mouth full. "Is it poison- ACK!"  
He ran out of the room and onto the deck, where he threw up over the railing. (It fell onto the head of a citizen of Jidoor, who thought it must be raining.)  
"Who's flying this contraption now that Setzer got sick?" Edgar asked.  
"Oh NO!" Strago cried, putting down his glass of milk and running out of the room.  
"What're YOU gonna do, Gramps?" Relm asked. "You're too old-fashioned to know how to fly an airship!"  
"Kupo!" Mog exclaimed.  
"You don't know, either!"  
"Oh, I'LL take control." Edgar said, and ran out after Strago.  
  
Since both Setzer and Sabin were sick from poisoning, Gau and Relm decided to make them a...  
"Cake!" Relm cried, shoving it onto Sabin's lap.  
"Oh, no you don't!" Sabin cried and ran off, knocking it onto the floor. "Edgar! Brother! They're trying to kill me! HELP!"  
"Maybe YOU want some?" Relm begged their second victim.  
"Want some?" Setzer asked.  
"Cake." Relm replied.  
"Cake?"  
"Yeah, cake!" Relm said, picking it up off the floor and capturing some on a fork. "Open wide!" 


	3. A Day At the Opera

A Day At The Opera  
  
One day, Locke, Celes and their friends went to see a play at the newfangled Opera House in Jidoor.  
Halfway into the play, Gau began to whine. "Me need to go to bathroom!" he cried, tugging on the person sitting to his left's arm.  
"Now?!" Sabin asked in disbelief. "In the middle of the greatest,most celebrated play in the history of the world, you have to go to the BATHROOM?!"  
"Me can help it," Gau said piteously.  
"Still thy whimpering!" Cyan exclaimed. "Thou art a fool! I'LL take the little rogue!"  
And so they left, tripping and stepping over peoples' feet as they went. Sabin sighed in relief and leaned back in his soft, cushy chair. He put it in "recline" mode, and it landed on top of the person in the row behind him.  
Terra and Banon had left half an hour to get popcorn, but still hadn't returned. Celes got up to go look for them.  
"300 gp for a small box of popcorn?!" Terra yelled at the cashier. "I could go buy a Pheonix Down with that!"  
"150 gp for a soda," Banon added, going off to buy a pretzel, which would cost him 200 gp. (Salt extra, of course.)  
Back in the theatre, Shadow slapped Edgar, whose mouth was hanging open. He was drooling and his eyes, which were focused directly on the stage where Maria was singing a lovely ballad, were glazed over. The young king didn't even wince.  
Shadow was in a bad mood because the Impressario wouldn't let him bring Interceptor in with him. No matter WHAT he said or did.  
Cyan and Gau came back. "Er...where IS the bathroom?" the Doman swordsman asked sheepishly.  
Sabin ignored them, and munched on a licorice stick. (90 gp.) Then he yawned and fell asleep.  
Terra and Banon returned, looking very pleased with themselves. They had bothered the cashier so much he had finally given them 5 small boxes of popcorn and 3 bottles of Diet Coke for free.  
After a few minutes, Celes came back. She stared at Edgar. "Is he even BREATHING?" she asked, sticking a popcorn kernel in his open mouth.  
Sabin started snoring loudly, and he rolled over, on top of Shadow, who was struggling to open a bottle of Coke.  
Locke didn't feel very well. He leaned over the railing of the balcony and threw up.  
"EWW!" someone below exclaimed angrily. "WHO DID THIS?!"  
"Look what you did!" Celes exclaimed, clapping a hand on the treasure hunter's shoulder. "Of all the heads you could've barfed on, you just HAD to choose Kefka's, didn't you?!"  
"What's HE doing at an opera?" Sabin asked, waking up because Shadow had roughly shoved him onto the floor, and had went back to trying to open the Coke bottle.  
The deranged Kefka stormed up the stairs to the balcony (after whiping all the gunk with General Leo's cape, of course. The cape that costed 1000 gp, and was bought just for the occasion.) and demanded, "Okay! Which one of you vile insects had the gall to throw up on the great Kefka?!"  
Locke put a hand on his stomach and retched on Kefka's feet.  
"ARGH!" Kefka cried. "I have VOMIT on my boots!" Two soldiers ran up the stairs and started cleaning off his boots with OrangeGlo. He glared at them, and they scurried off.(General Leo was still staring at his vomit-stained cloak in shocked horror.)  
Just then, Cyan and Gau returned from the bathroom-bumping right into the mutant General (Kefka IS a General, isn't he?!), who whacked the barbarian with his staff.  
"WHAOOW! You hit Gau!" Gau cried. "Mr. Thou, do something!"  
Cyan shoved Kefka off the railing roughly. "I'll give thou thy box of popcorn if thou stays in thy orchestra pit."  
"Sure!" Kefka came back up, took, the popcorn and left, pushing a violinist off his chair.  
"What're you DOING?!" Terra demanded. "That popcorn cost us 100 gp!"  
"I thought you got it for free," Sabin objected, scratching his head.  
"Well, butter was extra," Banon said, as if that explained everything. it did.  
Shadow finally handed the coke bottle to Sabin.  
"You're strong, you open it."  
So Sabin gripped the bottle tightly and forced it open. It exploded, getting Edgar all wet, but the King of Figaro didn't even notice.  
The rest of the opera passed quite uneventfully, until they were all ready to leave.  
"Come, Interceptor," Shadow hissed, looking under his seat.  
"I thought-HEY!" the Impressario exclaimed, and he fainted. Shadow walked out, his faithful dog behind him.  



	4. A Day at the Dragon's Neck Colliseum

A Day at the Dragon's Neck Colliseum  
  
"Welcome to the Dragon's Neck Colliseum, I'm your receptionist for the day...blah blah blah... I HATE THIS JOB! Do you know how hard it is for me, an OCTOPUS, to fill out application forms with only one tentacle?" Ultros cried.  
"Can't say I do." the dark ninja replied.  
"I wanted to work at the Opera House in Jidoor, but NOOOO! I hafta work here instead! I get to sit at this stupid desk, DAY AFTER DAY, and I have to do work! It's a hard, cruel world for an octopus like me..." here, Ultros blew his nose soppily on a handkerchief.  
"Are you trying to make me and other potential customers go home so that this place won't get any business and it'll be forced to close down?" Shadow asked, barely stifling a yawn.  
"Now there's an idea!" Ultros cried. "Now- do you want to hear about the fact that Mister Chupon actually gets to fight here although all he does is sneeze on people and spread cold germs, or the time I got myself stuck in a blender?"  
"The blender incident." Shadow said, struggling to get himself untied from his chair.  
"Well, it happened when I was an irresponsible young octopus." Ultros said, misty-eyed. "Now those were the days! The days when the sight of an octopus terrified the populace! Now people just point at me and laugh."  
Shadow nodded, trying to look interested, but felt that if he didn't get loose within the next few minutes he was going to go berserk.  
"Anyway, my mother always told me each morning - 'good night, dear, and stay away from the blender.' So of course I decided to see what was so darn bad about it! And they had it right on the kitchen counter, too! What idiots - say, am I boring you?"  
Shadow yawned loudly as he tried to come up with a plan, one that wouldn't incude the fact that his foot had fallen asleep. "No, no, not at all...go...on..."   
His eyes closed and the chair fell over onto its side because of the fact that his slight form had swayed. Ultros didn't notice.  
"So that night I crawled out of bed as soon as my dad's snoring began to shake the house, and I went to the kitchen and climbed onto the counter. I stuck my tentacle in the blender and pressed the red button with another, and it started making this HORRIBLE whirring noise. Then I looked down and saw it was chopping my poor arm into itty bitty pieces! My mom came rushing out and spanked me and told me that if I ever went near a blender again she would stuff me down a toilet. My own mother!"  
"Zzzz..."  
"So the next morning, I went to the kitchen to get some cocoa crispies, when this alarm went off and lights started flashing and a dozen police cars pulled up to the house. My mom marched in, and dragged me to the bathroom. 'Do you know what I'm going to do, son?' she asked sweetly. 'No.' I replied. 'Well, FIND OUT!' she cried and stuffed me down the toilet. Then dad came in with a plunger, and...hey! Are you even listening to me?!"  
Shadow opened his eyes and blinked. "Uh...sure. Of course I was!" he exclaimed indignantly. He tried to get the chair upright again, but only managed to get even more tangled up. Then he managed to get a hold of his knife and cut the ropes loose. He jumped up, and immediately fell down again.   
"Oww...stupid foot!" he cried, trying to rip his boots off so that it could get circulation and he could stand.  
Ultros ignored this. "So... do you want me to tell you about the time I -"  
"NO!" Shadow screamed, standing up and bracing himself against the wall. "I came here to get a Striker, and that's what I'm gonna do!"  
So he limped off to the Colliseum proper, cursing under his breath.  
"You forgot your shoes!" Ultros called after him.  
After Shadow got his boots and forced them on, he fell down the stairs. Then he staggered over to the arena, and told the man that he wanted a Striker.  
"Striker?" the man asked. "Okay, then. Have fun."  
A gigantic slug slithered over, belched, and fell on top of him with a loud thud that shook the whole building. He managed to crawl out from under it, but realized he was covered with slime. So he ran to the bathroom, but he slipped and fell down the stairs all over again. He finally managed to make his way to the hotel and went to his room to take a bath. He then realized that there was no hot water, but by then it was too late and he was soaked. So he went to get a towel and realized that there were none.   
He threw on his ninja robes anyway, and went back downstairs. He told the man that he still wanted a Striker. The man raised his eyebrows but didn't say anything.  
The slug was gone. This time it was a Rock Golem. It stomped over, stepped on Shadow, scraped him off the bottom of its foot and walked off.  
So he got medical attention, and tried again.   
He got flamed.  
He got stomped.  
He got frozen.  
He got sliced open by a dissecting knife.  
But did he give up? Nooo. After a rather lengthy nap in his hotel room (he had a nightmare and the person in the room next-door thought he was being murdered so he called security) he returned to the arena.  
"Let me guess." the man said. "Striker?"  
Shadow nodded.  
"Well, go right on ahead."  
So Shadow wondered what he was going to face now.  
"Ungahh!"a huge yeti cried, flinging a huge bone mace at him before the dark ninja could even blink an eye.  
The other 3 observers flinched. When Shadow woke up he was back in the hotel room, despite the fact that he had locked the door behind him.  
"No lock's a match for Locke the treasure hunter!" Locke said.  
"Thief, you mean." Mog the Moogle corrected.  
"TREASURE HUNTER!" Locke screamed.   
"Whatever," Sabin of Figaro said.  
"If you join our party, I'll give you this Striker." King Edgar, also of Figaro, said.   
And so Shadow joined their party and never had another slug fall on top him again! 


	5. Gum and Airships - Daryl + Setzer

Gum and Airships   
Daryl shaded her eyes with her hand and looked out over the horizon. The sky was the usual clear blue, with only a few clouds dotted here and there. She frowned in thought for a few moments, and then ran off to visit with a close friend of her's.  
She found him under the airship, struggling to tighten some bolts with a monkey wrench. She knelt down beside his feet, and asked, "Whatcha doing, Setz?"  
"Admiring all the gum you stuck down here, Dar." he replied, and sat upright, hitting his head.   
"Where else am I supposed to put it?" she demanded. "And don't call me Dar."  
"This might seem a novel idea to you, but there is such a thing as a wastebasket. And if you stop calling me Setz, I'll stop calling you Dar."  
"Right, Setz."  
He climbed out from under the airship, almost completely drenched in axle grease. "Well, what brought you here? You almost never come here to chat and drive me insane without having a reason."  
"That's not a good enough motive?" she asked in mock shock. "Whyever not? Because you're more than insane enough already?"  
"That's probably it." He stood up and put the monkey wrench back in its place.   
"I came here 'cause I need you to look at the engine."  
"For the Falcon?"  
"Of course, you nimrod."  
"If you call me a nimrod, jerk or ferret one more time, I'm not going to help you anymore. And seeing that I practically built half of your airship already, you'd want to be nice to me."  
"I know that, Setz. You're too serious sometimes. How do you do it?"  
"I don't know. Let's go look at your engine, 'kay?"  
"Yes, let's."  
On and off, for the past year and a half or so, Daryl had been working on the airship Falcon. At first, she had had absolutely no clue what to do. And who could possibly provide more help to her than Setzer Gabbiani, the only other person in the world who had built an airship, and one that flew on top of that?  
Before she had developed this latest obsession, the two of them had been only the merest of aquaintences. (She had been working in the stage crew at the Opera House in Jidoor, and had run down the stairs with an armload of boxes, knocking him over and giving him a concussion. How's that for starting friendships?) She had managed to track him down four years later so that she could ask him for help, though. ("Hi! Remember me? I'm the girl who accidentally pushed you down 5 flights of stairs at the Opera House...no! Don't slam that door on me!")  
"Are you coming or not?" Setzer asked, looking at her in concern.  
"Oh! Sorry 'bout that." she replied. "Just got too wrapped up in memories."  
"Don't apologize. It happens all the time." They went down to look at the half-done frame of the Falcon.  
  



	6. First Day On The Job - Daryl + Setzer

This story really has no point. It's just something about how Daryl and Setzer could've (but highly unlikely) met.  
Daryl stood on the outside steps of the Opera House, watching all the people come in and out. Like anyone on the first day of a new job, she had been eager to please her new boss, and had been put to work handing out programs.  
"Want a program?" she asked a strikingly beautiful young woman in a tight dress with long blonde hair.  
"Of course not!" she replied snootily. "I work here."  
"Well, excuse me!" Daryl replied. "So do I."  
The other girl looked at her rather torn-up clothes and laughed. "Not very high on the totem pole, I see."  
"And what are you supposed to be?" Daryl asked.  
"I'm Maria, the opera singer. Are you from the Veldt or something?"  
"Actually, I'm from Maranda."  
"Equally uncultured, I'm afraid," Maria said with a sniff. Daryl looked around, wishing to change the subject. Her eyes fell on a man about 3 or 4 years her senior, talking animatedly to the Impresario. He had pale, skin and whitish hair that went down to a little below his shoulders, and was dressed in a long black coat that flowed down to his ankles. Overall, he looked quite handsome, if also a bit...strange. Then again, Daryl figured he was just a rich eccentric. She had run into quite alot of those people already.  
"Is that guy one of the actors?" she asked, pointing. Maria sniffed again.  
"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to point in public?" she asked loudly. The man in question turned to look at them for a few seconds.   
"Well, who is he?" Daryl asked, feeling steadily more annoyed. She had the feeling that Maria had said that just to make him look at her and see how much of a boor she was.  
"Obviously he's Setzer Gabbiani. And don't you even tell me you don't know who he is." Maria replied peevishly.  
"Uh...I don't know who he is."  
"You are just too much." Maria said, glaring at her. "If you manage to survive your first day of working here, you'll be seeing him a lot more."  
Just then, the Impresario walked over, dragging Setzer with him. "Maria! There you are!" he exclaimed. "What're you doing here? You're supposed to be practicing your lines!"  
Maria gave Daryl such a superior smile that she had to clench her fingers even more tightly around the stack of programs. Then she noticed the flirtatious looks that the opera singer was shooting at Setzer. She smiled evilly.  
"Program?" she asked.  
"Why, thank you." He accepted it. Maria glared at her as if it had been something more than a pamphlet, and proceeded to bodily drag him off to her dressing room. Daryl wondered how come everyone seemed to be dragging him around today, and shrugged. The Impresario also left.   
Later on, she and the rest of the staff were sitting back on the balcony and watching the play. Daryl admittedly found it more than slightly boring, and no matter what anyone else's opinion was, she felt that Maria's voice was like claws on a chalkboard. At the intermission, she got up to walk around and help set up props. She was struggling to carry a particularly heavy box down the stairs when someone coming up the stairs asked, "Do you want me to help you with that?"  
But just then, she lost her balance, and toppled down the stairs. She knocked him onto the floor.  
After getting up, retrieving the box and making sure nothing was broken, she turned to her...victim.  
"Sorry 'bout that- Setzer, was it?" she asked casually, looking at the man sprawled out on the floor. She didn't recieve any response. Before she could check to see what was wrong, she realized Maria was standing at the top of the staircase.  
"What the heck are you doing back here?" she asked. "Only the Impresario and the cast are allowed here!"  
"Er...I think I just murdered Mr. Gabbiani." Daryl replied, dead (no pun intended) serious. Maria dashed down the stairs (or as fast as a woman with a corset could dash) and stared. Just then, the Impresario himself joined them. He, also, stared.  
A few minutes later, after Daryl wondered whether she should've hidden the body in the closet and if she was going to be arrested, and after the Impressario managed to get Maria to go back onstage, Setzer sat up on the floor.   
"Aren't you dead?" Daryl asked before she could stop herself. Setzer looked up at her warily, and placed a hand on his forehead.  
"No, dear, I'm not." His slender fingers clenched his skull tightly, and his eyes squinched shut in pain. He removed his hand, and looked at the blood on his fingers. Then he whiped them off on his coat. "If I were, you'd be able to tell. Believe me."  
"I'm sure there are exceptions, but most dead people don't talk." the Impressario said. "Now, Daryl, I think you've caused enough havoc and mayhem for today. Would you kindly leave?"  
"Still want me to come back here tomorrow?" she asked, about to head for the door.  
"Actually, no. First, you insult Maria, then-"  
"I can't help it!" Daryl exclaimed. "All I did was try to give her a program, and she acts like I'm something she scraped off the bottom of her ballet slippers! What am I supposed to do, let her walk all over me?"  
While the Impressario was thinking of a reply to this, (one that could actually be said), Setzer was struggling back to his feet. He grabbed onto her arm (his fingers were all cold like ice) and managed to stand. Then he promptly fell over again.   
"What is your problem?" Daryl asked.  
"Just...what you were saying about...Maria!" he exclaimed, laughing. "I've always wanted to...say that...about her myself!"  
The Impresario shook his head in despair and left them.  



	7. Cyan and The Cellphone

"You just have to show technology who's boss!"  
-Cyan Garamonde  
  
Cyan And The Cell Phone  
  
One nice day in the month of October, Cyan of Doma had agreed to go to the Opera with Edgar and Setzer. He sat waiting for the King to decide which robe to wear ("This one? Nah...how 'bout THIS one - Egads! It has a STAIN on it! How can that BE?!) when he noticed something that made his blood run cold.  
"A...DEVICE!" he cried in horror, staring at a small piece of black plastic on the table. "I'm in a room with a.....DEVICE!!!"  
Just then, the door swung open and Setzer Gabbiani walked in. "Hi, Cyan!"  
Cyan pointed to the table shakily. "W...what is that?" he demanded.  
"A cell phone." Setzer replied. They sat waiting for an hour or two (how long could it take?! And how many robes could Edgar possibly own?! Seeing that he was a King, they had a feeling that number might be too high to comprehend), Cyan glancing nervously at the phone. Then Setzer stood up.  
"Dammit, I forgot my wallet on the airship again! I'll be right back...."  
"Don't leave me here alone!" Cyan begged, latching onto the gambler's arm. Setzer detatched him and left anyway. Cyan ran over to the door but it was locked. He tried to break the door down, when suddenly something happened.  
The phone rang.  
"AAAUGH!" Cyan stared at it in helpless terror. "AAAAAUGH! AAAAAAAAUGH!"  
He went back to (trying to anyway) breaking the door down, and when THAT didn't work, started throwing books at the window. As you might have suspected, that did not work, either. And the phone was still ringing.  
Finally, Cyan cautiously crept over to the table and picked up the phone. "Er...hello?" he asked meekly.  
"Do you have Prince Albert in a can? If you do, you'd better let him out!" There was a click, and the dial tone sounded.  
Thoroughly bewildered, Cyan put the phone back on the table and returned to his chair to wait for Setzer. A few minutes later, after Cyan recovered from his crisis, Setzer returned.  
"Is Edgar back YET?!" he demanded, sitting next to Cyan, who shook his head. Then the swordsman turned to Setzer and asked,  
"And who is Prince Albert? Why would I put him in a can, anyway?"  
  
THE END. 


End file.
